Syrian rebels set free a kidnapped Lebanese

Syrian boys play next to a house destroyed in a Syrian government bombing last week that killed more than 40 people, in Azaz, on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, Friday, Aug. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye, the head of the failed United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria, departs for Lebanon in a UN convoy from his residence at the Dama Rose hotel in Damascus, Syria, Saturday, August 25, 2012. The observers' deployment in April that had intended to supervise a truce that never took hold, was one of the only concrete achievements in former Special Envoy Kofi Annan's attempts to halt the country's escalating civil war. There sign in Arabic reads "armed forces officer's club." (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)

BEIRUT — Syrian rebels freed one of 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims they have been holding for three months on Saturday, in a move aiming to ease cross-border tensions after a wave of abductions of Syrian citizens in Lebanon.

Hussein Ali Omar, 60, appeared healthy in an interview aired on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV as he crossed into Turkey after his release, urging the Lebanese and Arabs to support the Syrian people in the midst of their country’s escalating civil war.

The release came a week after Lebanese tribesmen kidnapped two Turks and more than 20 Syrians to force the rebels to release Lebanese citizen Hassane al-Mikdad, who the rebels captured near the Syrian capital of Damascus and accused of being a member of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group.

The al-Mikdad clan, which later released most of the Syrians it was holding except for four, is a powerful Shiite Muslim family in Lebanon.

The Shiite pilgrims were abducted May 22 after crossing into Syria from Turkey on their way to Lebanon.

A previously unheard of group calling itself “Syrian Rebels in Aleppo” claimed responsibility.

The group demanded that the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, apologize for his comments in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Nasrallah, an ally of Assad’s regime, has said the abduction would not change his group’s stance.

Mohammed Nour, a rebel spokesman in the Syrian northern town of Azaz, said in a statement read on TV that the release was in response to a request by Lebanon’s Association of Muslim Scholars and an adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Nour did not say what they will do with the remaining 10 pilgrims but repeated his call for Hezbollah to “specify their stance regarding the Syrian people and revolution.”

Syria’s 18-month crisis has spilled over into neighboring Lebanon, where pro- and anti-Syrian group have clashed since Monday in the northern city of Tripoli.

The latest violence in Tripoli killed at least 17 and wounded more than a 100 wounded.

In Syria, activists reported clashes between rebels and government troops and well as shelling in different areas including the northern province of Aleppo, the district of Idlib, the eastern region of Deir el-Zour and Daraa in the south. The activists also reported violence in some suburbs of the capital, Damascus, including Daraya which government troops entered on Thursday.

State-run news agency SANA reported heavy clashes in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, saying that “many terrorists” were killed or wounded.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes in the eastern town of al-Bukamal, which borders Iraq, were concentrated near an air defense base.

Al-Bukamal is in the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour.

The Observatory said 109 people were killed in Daraya alone over the past four days as a result of clashes and violence.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said army helicopter gunships attacked the town of Qusair in the central province of Homs.

Activists say that more than 20,000 people have been killed since the country’s crisis began in March last year.

Earlier Saturday, the head of a team of United Nations observers tasked to monitor a cease-fire in Syria that failed left Damascus. Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye gave no statement before leaving for Lebanon.

The mission ended last Sunday but Gaye stayed for meetings.

The U.N. Security Council has agreed to back a small new liaison office to support future peace efforts.

The observers’ deployment in April was one of the only concrete achievements in Special Envoy Kofi Annan’s attempts to halt the country’s escalating civil war.

They had intended to supervise a truce that never took hold.

Annan abandoned the job earlier this month and was replaced by veteran Algerian diplomat and former U.N. envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi.

Brahimi hinted Friday at the immense challenges he faces trying to negotiate an end to the war, saying the mission left him “flattered, humbled and scared.”